To abort is to stop. And we need to stop working ourselves up into an unproductive lather over the word abortion. There are a lot of feelings, thoughts, and opinions on the issue, but the goal needs to be legal access to safe abortion in the United States at the end of the day. There is every rational, logical, evidence-based reason why.

I’ve been wary of taking a stance on the internet about something so controversial, but my feelings are absolutely certain, and thus, so must my resolve be.

It’s easy to dismiss the debate as complicated, or abandon the dialogue altogether when it gets too heated or emotional. But all that does is leave decisions up to those already in power. Those whose voices are already loudest and keep on being loud regardless of logic, truth, benefit, or common sense. I am not claiming to be a neutral human being (no one can be). I am a woman. I feel I have a right to autonomy over my own person physically, financially, emotionally, politically, and technically. I love babies. And, I believe pizza is better with pineapple on it. But in this instance I believe it is most constructive, efficient, true, and fair to come at this issue with facts.

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I’m going to start with my foundation for this argument as it makes sense to me. You’re allowed to agree with all of it, some of it, or none of it, but you’ll know where I’m at.

1. I support pro-choice legislation to the full extent of what that means. Legally, this is not about abortion at all. It’s about rights. The right to have a medical procedure. This one happens to only be applicable to those with a uterus, which makes it impossible to disentangle from women’s rights as there is a significant overlap in the two groups (allowing for transgender persons with a uterus). As women have been traditionally disenfranchised legally, globally and for most of human history, it is not a wild leap to surmise that restricting access to this medical procedure, legally, is part of a mislead effort to intensify that disenfranchisement.

2. Abortion is not a rampant social crisis that needs to be legislated. No one wants to have an abortion. It is its own deterrent by virtue of being highly unpleasant. No one wants to kill babies either. No one is running around killing babies or encouraging others to do so because they hate babies so much (excepting sociopaths, and those with other mental illness whom do not represent American women as a whole).

3. It doesn’t really matter when life begins. I do not question the miracle that is life, procreation, and nature’s ability to regenerate. People are life, plants are life, bugs are life, animals are life. In my opinion, as it pertains to this argument, aborting a fetus has taken on an illogical place in the determination of life’s value, when killing a goldfish or your houseplant, or damning children to disease and violence are all acceptable treatment of life.

4. Men should have an opinion on this political issue. Men should speak up and absolutely support American citizens’ rights to freedom. And I do not think that anyone else with a uterus should have an enforceable legal opinion about my uterus just because we both have one. A woman signed an anti-abortion law in Alabama, women voted for the representatives proposing unconstitutional anti-abortion legislation, women harass patients and doctors at abortion clinics. Men are instrumental in abortion, since no one would need one without them, and there’s every reason for them to want to set a precedent for legal autonomy over ones person since they’re people. This is not about men making laws about women’s bodies. It’s about the government making laws about any American’s body autonomy. Which is not constitutional or acceptable. And the reason we get to enjoy TLC programming about people filing their teeth into points and implanting horns into their head. You can do whatever you want to your body and it’s no ones business, gender irrespective.

5. Just because I don’t want my congressperson in my gynecological exam room doesn’t mean I don’t want my gynecologist in there. I do. She knows a lot more about my reproductive health than me. That’s why it’s a condition of my employment to offset the exorbitant costs of maintaining a person vessel. Doctors should absolutely be involved in making what is unquestionably a difficult and important medical decision, giving the factual pros and cons of ALL options, and helping to navigate whichever option YOU CHOOSE as safely as possible. With absolutely no risk of policemen, religious representatives, or clowns, to weigh in. I heartily believe in a separation of Church and State is crucial to a free democracy in all ways.

6. Rape victims should always have access to abortion should they become pregnant. However, that condition is an unacceptable limitation to access. Any woman that finds themselves in possession of an unplanned pregnancy that they do not want, for any reason, all of which are none of my or your business, should be able to do so legally and safely under the care of a medical professional and offered counseling services. The rape and incest caveat is not enough. Especially, not enough ‘for now’. It reinforces that there has to be a justification or ‘good reason’ that the law should permit women to make their own medical decisions and that they’re incapable of making that assessment.

Now we can get into the juicy data. I have done my best to reference and link to the most current, fact-checked, neutrally sourced statistics. I’m happy to discuss if you take issue with any of them, but you better have done the same.

Approximately 926,200 abortions were performed in 2014, down 12% from 1.06 million in 2011. 2

What I hope to convey from the above is that late-term abortions are the exception in the extreme. It is not hyperbole. No one is attempting to diminish the utter tragedy of that scenario. It is statistically rare. In most cases (I refuse to use absolutes because there are always exceptions that I do acknowledge, even if they represent a negligible percentage), these are performed only in the instance that the mother is in danger of death and proceeding otherwise would likely kill both mother and baby. This is because doctors don’t go on being doctors if they kill people and a late-term abortion poses a health risk including hemorrhage. Beyond that, the proposition is the least desirable scenario for all involved. No doctor wants to perform that procedure. No woman wants to undergo it. It is physically, emotionally, and mentally reprehensible. But in the interest of not dying, it is a medical necessity sometimes.

That said:

A first-trimester abortion is one of the safest medical procedures and carries minimal risk: Major complications (those requiring hospital care, surgery or transfusion) occur at a rate of less than 0.5%.12,13

There is no long-term risk of problems such as infertility, ectopic pregnancy, spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) or birth defect, and little or no risk of preterm or low-birth-weight deliveries.14

Leading experts have concluded that among women who have an unplanned pregnancy, the risk of mental health problems is no greater if they have a single first-trimester abortion than if they carry the pregnancy to term.15

The risk of death associated with abortion increases with the length of pregnancy, from 0.3 for every 100,000 abortions at or before eight weeks to 6.7 per 100,000 at 18 weeks or later.16

Doctors do not perform procedures that put their patients lives in unnecessary risks. It is incompatible with retaining their medical licenses. ‘Late-term’ abortion is something of a misnomer in the medical community as it almost always refers to procedures at 21-24 weeks gestation. No doctor will abort a full term baby without life-threatening reason regardless of legality.

There are many medical procedures that doctors perform at patient request without any request for justification or public protest.

The decision to have plastic surgery is extremely personal and you will have to weigh the potential benefits in achieving your goals with the risks and potential complications of breast augmentation. Only you can make that decision for yourself.

Don’t get lost is the weeds here in terms of your feelings about fake tits. The point is that women (and anyone else) are considered to have the legal aptitude to decide if they want boobs legally, but not whether they want babies. We have the choice. Unquestioned.

It’s also worth thinking about the alternative scenario should abortion become illegal (again). Both historically and as evidenced by the reality in other countries where that is currently the case the resultant challenge will not be an influx of unwanted babies. It will be an increase in clandestine abortions, performed unsafely. Remember Dirty Dancing?

As to the arguments that rescinding abortion services violates social justice, indirectly supports systemic poverty, homelessness, and lack of education, as well as being inherently racist – are totally, statistically true. And really shoots a hole in the whole ‘saving children’ appeal. BUT that does NOT mean it’s a poor issue, or a brown one.

Every cross-section of American women of child-bearing age is represented in every statistic. Because abortions don’t ‘happen to’ anyone and it’s not because they’re bad, stupid, or weak. The numbers don’t lie.

As God hasn’t smote half a million (an approximation) American women, that I’ve noticed, it might be time to admit that religion, it’s practice, and it’s place in people’s lives is personal and not to be imposed on any other person without their consent or request.

This means that 85% of patients who had abortions are adults, generally considered to be legally capable of owning cars and houses, working, operating bank accounts, using power tools, and every other decision that pertains to living one’s life as a free American. They can vote, too, and they should.

Thethree most common reasons[to abort, of those recorded]—each cited by three-fourths of patients—wereconcern for or responsibility to other individuals; theinability to afford raising a child; and the belief that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents.

49% of abortion patients live below the federal poverty level.

75% of abortion patients in 2014 were poor or low-income. Twenty-six percent of patients had incomes of 100–199% of the federal poverty level (low-income), and 49% had incomes of less than 100% of the federal poverty level ($15,730 for a family of two).*6

In case you believe that patients can afford an abortion, but not a baby, costs range from $350 to $950, dependent on the clinic, insurance coverage, and sometimes stage of pregnancy. According to a 2017 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average cost of raising a child from birth through age 17 is $233,610. To clarify, poverty is not herein to be considered a necessary justification for procuring an abortion, but evidence that patients in a position of financial hardship stand to suffer disproportionately as a result of legal bans.

Exposure to sexual violence was substantially and significantly higher among patients who identified as lesbian (0.4%), bisexual (4.1%), or something else (1.1%) including physical violence by the man involved in the pregnancy.

51% of abortion patients in 2014 were using a contraceptive method in the month they became pregnant, most commonly condoms (24%) or a hormonal method (13%).8

Now that we know, statistically, that women who undergo abortions are not young, stupid, or asking for it, and that their main motivation is refusing to put their child in a situation where they’ll suffer from inequalities and inadequacies in their care (which more than half know from personal experience) we can take a look at the alternative. Statistically.

Of the estimated 247,631 children who exited foster care during 2017:
– 49% were reunited with parent(s) or primary caretaker(s).
– 24% were adopted.
– 8% were emancipated.
– 10% went to live with a guardian.
– 7% went to live with another relative.
– 2% had other outcomes including being transferred to another agency, running away, and death.

Approximately 26,000 children a year age out of foster care and are statistically more likely to drop out of school, become unplanned parents, experience homelessness, or end up in jail.

About 57,000 American children are adopted in the United States each year.

The needs of children we already have in state care are already not being met by those looking to adopt, and those that are adopted are often children who went into care at age 6 or 7 and returned to other family members. The prospective mothers, by their own reckoning, and in line with their federal tax returns, are unable to care for a (or an additional) child. There are not enough volunteers to take that responsibility in their stead. Those that do want to adopt face the challenge of legal fees, the possibility of losing their child depending on varied state laws, and hurdles to approval for adoption including sexuality, marital state, and gender. The foster system is not equipped to ‘give them the best chance’ at life either.

If only to provide another, less contentious, frame, consider the following. Let’s pretend that abortions are root canals. Unarguably, no one is asking their dentist for a voluntary root canal. They are deemed a necessary evil as the alternative is a painful rotting tooth and likely, infection. Sometimes you need one. Telling someone they consented to an abortion by consenting to sex is like telling them they consented to tolerating their painful, rotting tooth when they ate Skittles. Yes, one led to the other. Maybe they were brushing and flossing and swishing (using contraception) and got a cavity anyway. Maybe they didn’t. Maybe something hit their face really hard one day while playing youth sports and knocked their tooth out and this infection is not of their own doing at all but society has decided she deserves the consequences because she was asking for it by wearing cleats in the afternoon. Does this feel silly yet? I do understand that pregnancies are not infections. One can be eradicated with antibiotics and the other can reinforce poverty, lack of education, and homelessness.

Let’s take a quick minute to take a look at the Netherlands, where the outcomes are closer to what I believe all Americans would like to see.

The abortion rate in the Netherlands fluctuates between .5% and .7%, the lowest abortion rate in the world. Why? “Almost all secondary schools and about 50% of primary schools address sexuality and contraception…The mass media address adolescent sexuality and preventive behavior. Very large scale, non-moralistic, public education campaigns that are positive towards teenage sexual behavior appear to be successful.”

The maternal mortality rate in the US is 2.1%. It is 1.2% in Canada, 0.6% in the Netherlands, and 0.8% in Switzerland.^

Since 1973, when abortions in the U.S. were legalized, abortion has decreased. This is likely influenced by better healthcare, sexual education, availability and variety of contraception methods, but as those are all under threat as well it is worth mentioning we are already headed in the right direction.

Nearly half (45%) of all pregnancies among U.S. women in 2011 were unintended, and about four in 10 of these were terminated by abortion.1

The following serves to both rationalize that abortions are not a pervasive social problem, and indeed cannot be, as the infrastructure to support women’s health is lacking. The level of harassment is simply astonishing and disgusting.

Ninety percent of all U.S. counties lacked [an abortion providing] clinic in 2014, and 39% of women of reproductive age lived in those counties.2

Of the 1,671 U.S. abortion providing clinics in 2014, 46% of abortion clinics offered very early abortions (at four weeks’ gestation or earlier, before the first missed period), and 99% offered the procedure up to eight weeks from the last menstrual period. Seventy-two percent of clinics offered abortions up to 12 weeks, 25% up to 20 weeks and 10% up to 24 weeks.9

Eighty-four percent of clinics reported at least one form of anti-abortion harassment.

The Hyde Amendment, in effect since 1977, essentially bans federal dollars from being used for abortion coverage for women insured by Medicaid, the nation’s main public health insurance program for low-income Americans. Similar restrictions apply to other federal programs and operate to deny abortion care or coverage to women with disabilities, Native Americans, prison inmates, poor women in the District of Columbia, military personnel and federal employees.18

The above can be considered in whole, or in part, but does outline the lack of truth in nearly all arguments for illegalizing abortion. I respect everyone’s right to exercise their religion, to live their life in the manner that beings them happiness, and everyone’s rights to their own body. And I expect the same in return.

The fire was lit in the corner of the room. The flames glowing with a bit more intensity every time the chimney breathed. She walked into the room; in from the cold. Took off the glove on her left hand, one finger at a time, and set it on the table in the middle of the room. The right one followed. She took off her coat slowly, walking over to the window to see the snow falling, to look up and watch the snowflakes instead of nestling her nose down into her scarf as she had only minutes ago, walking up the street.

This was where they met that time. Once. When he wasn’t so sure how he felt and she was sure that she loved him. Not that she ever told him that. She couldn’t. Madness to hand over your heart when you’re not sure there’s anywhere for it to go. But that didn’t mean she had it any longer. It just sat there dripping in her hand, beating, waiting, growing heavier and drying out in the hot air of this room.

That was a long time ago. Now the room was hot, but only with the heat of the fire. It was no longer full of the wet heat of kisses and smiles, interlocking fingers and glances held too long. The air doesn’t belong to them now. The lovers. Those sighs of his belong to someone else and fill a different room.

This room feels different. The table with the gloves on it. The fire flashing in time with the winter wind. She’s not big enough, what she feels isn’t big enough, to fill it.

She takes a deep breath and kicks her shoes off. The room doesn’t have to be full to be warm. It’s only one night.

It’s not an easy thing to wake up in the wrong country. It makes that hazy moment before your eyes actually open one of low-level dread that it’s all actually happening, but you still have to crawl out of bed earlier than you’d like, and do things for money so you can eat food, in the hope that you’ll wake up to a day where things are less crap.

This is exacerbated by my unwilling repatriation. Years of living in London abruptly, and somewhat dramatically (apologies to the pub for the lingering smell of burning hair), came to an end with the United Kingdom’s (and all of its citizens) unwillingness to put a ring on it. The world is getting smaller and more connected and the first, brick to the face, result of this shift has been fear, swiftly followed by resistance. It’s working out really great for everyone. To see so many nations of world with both hands fisted in the fabric of nationalism so firmly, many of which were on the wrong side of the last pass of this wave, is devastatingly disappointing.

I’ve started my whole life over a few times now. And I’ll do it again. But I don’t want to this time. I’ll do it anyway. Piece together house, job, food, friends, and climate appropriate wardrobe. Because it’s what you do. And valleys end in peaks, right? With about half of the above in place I can honestly say I’ve learned more than I predicted about what I can live with and what I can live without. I need friends; I don’t need close approximations thereof. And I need to work doing something that I believe in.

This whole life malarkey really is a work-in-progress sort of deal. Coping.

These are the words that I have chosen to define my twenties. Not because I spent them naked. Or because the decade was defined by how I look, but because I seemed to do alright when really I was over the top incredible.

That said, the phrase has been expressed more than once (if with variations in vocabulary) and other girls boyfriends have nodded sagely, their eyes glazing over with brief remembrance, before coming to their senses. They’ve never actually had the sense to date me for more than a couple of months, but that had nothing to do with me. Probably. Hopefully.

Anyway, there’s more to life than love, and there’s been plenty to love. Three careers in, I started a company in a foreign country with no money and while it’s mostly felt like a Prometheus and the rock sort of experience looking back I’ve done quite a lot that I’m really rather proud of. Happy clients, rent paid, and a few astonishingly supportive friends. My threshold for thriving possibly needs to be reassessed.

While still secretly baffled at what winning at life would actually look like, I’ve decided to give the woman I’ve been a break for not exceeding every expectation on the grounds of having chased every dream, and more than a few whims. Not to say that they were all met with rampant success, but, especially in that case, I did it anyway and I can forgive myself a host of other mistakes on that alone.

I’ve tokened myself the queen of trying, and the failure analytics are irrelevant when there is some success to focus on and an almost entirely empty slate of regrets.

As with every new year, I will look to take the good into the next decade with me, and leave the mistakes behind. My clothes will have to do their best to keep up.

It is human nature to try and find patterns. In what we do, what other people do, in your peas at the dinner table.

When I got my fifth ‘Thanks, but no thanks’ text from someone I had been seeing (which was also the third ‘I’m getting back together with my ex-girlfriend, see ya’ text) in the last couple years I couldn’t help but think it might be me. This, despite every assurance that it was not me. Unfortunately, none of these gentlemen advanced past the cliché. My taste is possibly the problem.

As a results oriented person dwelling on the problem was not going to be enough. The potential solutions appeared to be market myself as a professional reunite-er:

“Take me out and your Ex will take you back in two months or less – guaranteed!”

Or, I could try my best to interrupt the pattern. Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity, so this seems the healthier, if less lucrative, option.

I’m not totally sure what that looks like yet, but I feel as though not being quite so nice about being set aside like last week’s box set is a good place to start.

And so, to keep to this new resolution I decided to forgo my usual ‘It’s alright, no hard feelings’ response. It might be true, and, clearly, none of them were my soul mate, but that doesn’t mean I have to make it easy.

When I finally texted back this last time I said the only thing that could be said,

You know that feeling when you get every last thing that you want? When the stars align, the fridge is full, and all the boys call? No? Me either.

I do, however, have a great many of the things that I want. So many of them, in fact, that all past versions of myself are extremely jealous of the present incarnation. I’ve been struck with a wave of gratefulness and believe it to be one of those feelings that we should slather all over and wallow around in if at all possible. A recent extended break brightened the shine on the charm of my daily life, because I was able to zoom out. Focus less on the frustrations and obstacles, more on the successes and joys.

It is easier to hear criticism than praise, harder to see progress than failure, and natural to focus on what is missing. As a motivational force for aspiration and ambition these things are rather helpful. However, not great for existential satisfaction. Which is where the breaks come in. The deep breath smell the roses stop and take a look around moments take over for just a minute. Your brain and your calendar both turn to mute so that you can see how great your life is without the itchy pollen of doubt, panic, and disappointment.